V: "Serpent's Tooth"Review

The second episode of V's Season 2, "Serpent's Tooth," was an improvement over last week's premiere. That doesn't mean that the show has completely rid itself of its dopey elements, but there was some good action and, more importantly, forward momentum in this one. The end game, which involved Hobbes, Erica and Malik all trying to be the first ones to get to an elusive Fifth Column extremist, Eli Cohn, was exciting - as was Malik and Erica's final confrontation in the car. Also, Hobbes busting Malik in the face with his gun was pretty sweet, although I'm still waiting for his character to shine through a bit more this year.

I was happy to see a new faction of The Fifth Column brought on to the show, as well as the mention of bombings happening all over the world. This story needs to open up a bit and presenting us with a larger, more organized and deadly, network of resistance members is a great way to do it. Plus, it gives the members of our small group (nice to see them mention the fact that they're just four people, btw!) a chance to weigh in on Eli's radical methods of violence. I liked Jack's whole story, where he discovered that he inadvertently influenced a crazy man. I certainly believed that he was full of guilt, but if you really watch that opening scene, and how it was presented to us, it was almost as if Jack kind of knew that he was suggesting violence. Maybe not specifically violence that kills lots of innocent people, but serious aggression none the less. Jack's eyes narrowed as he advised the man in the confessional, in a very "knowing" way.

"The S just got R."

While not wholly satisfying, we got a couple of meaty scenes between Anna and her mother, Diana (played by original "V" Jane Badler) where we discovered that Diana was leader of the previous "Operation: Subjugate and Impregnate Humanity" but was imprisoned for 15 years after she collapsed under the weight of human emotions. I'm assuming that, coming up on the show, there's going to be something more concrete about the "putting on of human skin" and how it makes the Visitors start to exhibit human emotions. There's got to be a connection there. I liked the idea that Anna turned against her own mother, much in the same way that Lisa is currently turning against her. However, all the talk about the human soul was a little silly.

It's fine to have Anna take a hard-line stance against human emotions, and I like the fact that she's targeted it as an advantage that humans have because it drives them in battle, but the entire "locating the human soul" deal – where Jack and Diana have to talk in really basic, esoteric terms about "feeling it" while putting their hands on their chest/heart – feels wonky. One good thing that might come from this angle though is the fact that it will place Jack, due to his profession, at the front and center of this war and give him more stuff to do. I just hope some of it includes him turning into a "man of action" instead of just a man of quiet contemplation.

I also like Chad's story as of late, especially after this episode where he found out just how dangerous it can be to even pretend to be the media mouth-piece for the Visitors. I'd like to see him get circulated into the group more, rather than just deal with Jack, but I'm sure that will come. The fact that he was the target this week, and that innocent people died because of him, has got to be eating away at him. But still, I do think that our little crew should have a guy on the inside now that Joshua's back from the dead and no longer a good guy. Maybe, now that Chad's given them a big piece of information (Malik!), he'll get invited to more clubhouse meetings.

I appreciated the nod to the scene in the original V mini-series where Diana unhinged her jaw and ate the guinea pig, but it was even more interesting to see Anna use Ryan's daughter as a blackmail tool. All in all, considering all the times that Erica herself has used a variation of the line "if it was your kid, what would you do?," I don't think our heroes, realistically, should really want to keep Ryan in the group. Hopefully they'll explain that in a more satisfactory manner in the near future. Vandervoort's Lisa didn't have much to do in this one, but there was a hint that she's got some serious egg-laying to do in the future. Sexy sexy egg-laying.

"Serpent's Tooth" definitely benefited from its action scenes and possible changes to the status quo. It's not the strongest of praise since that stuff usually just masks plot holes and distracts me from the clunky dialogue. But it sure makes the show a lot more fun, which should be priority one here.